Chrome 57 Will Reduce Power Consumption

Google has announced that the Chrome browser will change how it handles background tabs in an attempt to improve battery life. These tabs are estimated to "consume a third of Chrome's power usage on desktop." Users of Chrome on a laptop, tablet, or cell phone should see the most significant impact as these devices are more likely to be running on battery power. The improvement is due to a change in the throttling policy that "will delay timers to limit average CPU load to 1% of a core if an application uses too much CPU in background." Tabs that are playing audio or maintaining real-time connections won't be affected by the change. Google has stated that the long term goal is to suspend background tabs to further limit the power utilization.